EJ responds RE: SMU in talks with SEC

[leopold]

WTF?!

LOL - Why am I looking at Rick Astley?!

I'm laughing right now....

[Thumper]

This has been on PonyFans.com for days.

Someone tell him Dickerson got drafted, too.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=55956

[goldenstang]

WTF?!

LOL - Why am I looking at Rick Astley?!

I'm laughing right now....

have you never heard of been Rick'Rolled

[Thumper]

I just got a couple tweeds back from EJ regarding his earlier tweet about SMU and the SEC. Here is what I got:

Me: "Don't tease me."

EJ: "LOL. Multiple sources from SEC confirms discussions."

Me: "Wow. How reliable is this source?"

EJ: "Reliable. We will see. I was shocked when I found out."

Me: "Will PonyPride and Armen be publishing a story on this?"

EJ: "Once we gather more information yes we will have a story. We want to report the most reliable info."

The original PonyPride published it days ago.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=55956

[leopold]

Nope - it's a new one for me.

Maybe I'm just old.

[SMUstang07]

really - two thread on this subject

i think stallionsmodelt is a newbie on ponyfans

[PerunaPunch]

If SMU is invited to join the SEC and has to play a couple of games a year in the Cotton Bowl, they better figure out how to sell Fletchers corny dogs during the game!!!!

at least then the Cotton Bowl would have a reason to be renovated rather than imploded.

[StallionsModelT]

EJ now saying he is citing information from another site. Nothing to see here. Move along.

[Bucking Pony]

My sources tell me the site that was viewed by EJ was very credible... PonyFans.com.

Kidding aside, I hope it was the SEC intranet or something.

[MustangSTATS]

Looking at this from amount of fans, SMU is definitely a growth potential team which is why I hope there is a viable Big East for us to grow in for a few years. Missouri has 1.08million fans, 23 overall and would be 7th in the SEC. TAMU is bringing 2million fans to the SEC. SMU only has .163 fans. The SEC bottoms out at Vandy which has .379 which is about as many as TCU has now. SMU has .163 fans, 7th in CUSA, 97th overall.

Other potential SEC schools: WVU at (.959), Clemson (1.76), GTech (1.66), VaTech (1.33), Miami (1.32), FLSt(.813)
I would love to have SMU in the SEC, but we do not bring the money. Even with all its pageantry, money plays the dominant role in conference shuffles.

Also people talk about Big12 adding Cincinnati(.323) and Louisville (.300). They better hope they can snag BYU (.700). Big12 market value is about to take a huge drop once TAMU leaves and if Missouri leaves it will sink even lower. They have lost Colorado (.494), Nebraska (1.23), and TAMU (2.03), and Possibly Missouri (1.08). UT will out weigh all other teams by far.

NYT article well worth rereading

[Webmaster]

A couple of things...

The ORIGINAL story was broken here on PonyFans.com by the ORIGINAL PonyPride 2-3 days ago.

His source was a (requested to be unnamed) SEC university president, so I would consider it legit. The conversation was characterized as "serious", although due to the complexity of this sort of discussion, I don't think we can infer much more than:
- there is some interest
- there has been some discussion

And yes, Pride ran the story by SMU and confirmed its veracity before he posted it.

During the season, it's not usual to have 50,000+ unique visitors (or at least unique IPs) on PonyFans per month. I think that's an interesting barometer of Dallas' latent interest in SMU. Some of those are obviously the same user with multiple computers. But on the other hand, that visitor is probably head-of-household who could potentially purchase 2 or more tickets for his family or group of friends to a game.

As we all know, Dallas loves winners. If we were playing meaningful games against quality opponents, you'd see the same attendance explosion here that TCU has enjoyed -- even more so because we'd be playing marquis match ups against foes from a reasonably close geographic area (as compared to the excitement generated by TCU's MWC-level competition spread all over the western US). In my mind, attendance should be the least of the SEC's issues because that problem should correct itself naturally.

[SMU 86]

Well if PonyPride said it and confirmed it....... Maybe one day we could be chanting S E C, S E C, S E C.

[Wuba]

A couple of things...

The ORIGINAL story was broken here on PonyFans.com by the ORIGINAL PonyPride 2-3 days ago.

His source was a (requested to be unnamed) SEC university president, so I would consider it legit. The conversation was characterized as "serious", although due to the complexity of this sort of discussion, I don't think we can infer much more than:
- there is some interest
- there has been some discussion

And yes, Pride ran the story by SMU and confirmed its veracity before he posted it.

During the season, it's not usual to have 50,000+ unique visitors (or at least unique IPs) on PonyFans per month. I think that's an interesting barometer of Dallas' latent interest in SMU. Some of those are obviously the same user with multiple computers. But on the other hand, that visitor is probably head-of-household who could potentially purchase 2 or more tickets for his family or group of friends to a game.

As we all know, Dallas loves winners. If we were playing meaningful games against quality opponents, you'd see the same attendance explosion here that TCU has enjoyed -- even more so because we'd be playing marquis match ups against foes from a reasonably close geographic area (as compared to the excitement generated by TCU's MWC-level competition spread all over the western US). In my mind, attendance should be the least of the SEC's issues because that problem should correct itself naturally.

I think what we have here is an experienced journalist (pf.com ponypride) reporting the story and couching it in an appropriate way given the uncertainty and complexity as webmaster mentioned above, vs an inexperienced journalist who was using a medium (twitter) that does not lend itself to hedging the message and thus gave the impression he knew more than he did. Obviously everyone here appreciates everything ponyfans.com does, and this might be just one more example of the quality of the folks running the site. Not to rip the rivals guy, he is young and probably did not realize the brush storm he would set off, but if he was referencing another site he should have said so.

[GRGB]

Whats lost in the idea that "smu brings you Dallas" is that it's not just how many households will watch smu, it gives the sec and it's members the opportunity to market TO Dallas, and for their alumni to reconnect or reconnect more often. Not to mention recruiting.

[RednBlue11]

This would make the Big 12 schools [Gary Patterson] in their pants.

and def [gary patterson] the bed